As a boy, home was a tiny wooden bungalow shared with nine siblings; a life
lived beneath a corrugated iron roof, playing outdoors in the dusty red dirt
in a rural African village. As a man, however, he could be about to move
into the most luxurious palace of them all.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, born in a two-room shack 170 miles from Ghana's capital, is currently the bookmakers' favourite to become the next pope. If selected, it would make him the first African pope in modern times. And it is something that his family and friends in Nsuta-Wassa, a small mining settlement set amid rolling hills and lush forest in western Ghana, are struggling to believe.

"It is quite incredible that someone from here could become pope," said Dunhill Pawosey, 62, a life-long friend of Cardinal Turkson. "But we have total faith in him, and know he will do an excellent job. It is very exciting for us all."

Another family now live in the two-room house (Nyani Quarmyne / Demotix)

Excitement spread through this rural district of Ghana on Monday, soon after Pope Benedict XVI revealed the decision that surprised the world - becoming the first pope for 600 years to announce his intention to resign. The 85-year old told a gathering of cardinals in Rome that he no longer had the "strength of mind and body" needed to lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics.

He will step down on February 28, meaning that the 117 cardinals will gather to elect a new leader – likely to be in place by Easter.

And amid the frenzied speculation as to who will take over from the ageing pontiff, the 64-year-old Ghanaian was marked as one of the early front runners.

The yard of the house in Nsuta-Wassa (Nyani Quarmyne / Demotix)

The cardinal himself seems amused at the speculation, saying back in 2009: "Why not? We've had Kofi Annan as Secretary General of the United Nations... he had his problems, but he did it. Now we have Obama in the United States.

"So if, by divine providence, God would wish to have a black man as pope, I say thanks be to God!"

Furthermore, he is known to be highly regarded by Benedict; to be a like-minded social conservative against gay marriage, condom use and abortion, and to share his interest in academic study of the scriptures.

But unlike Benedict, who was raised in relative comfort in the southern German region of Bavaria, Cardinal Turkson's childhood could not be further removed from adult life in the marble halls of the Vatican.

The other room in the home where he was born and raised (Nyani Quarmyne / Demotix)

"We would shimmy up the coconut trees to collect the coconuts," said Mr Pawosey, whose parents lived opposite the Cardinal's family.

"We worked together at the slaughterhouse in the village, making small change by carrying the meat up to the market. We played a lot of table tennis too – it was his favourite. We were always together, right from when we were small boys."

The pair went to the village school together, which at that time meant lessons inside the Catholic church. A purpose-built school was only erected long after they had left.

"The students all know that the Cardinal studied there," said Aaron Yorke, 25, an IT teacher, who was marking books in the shade of a chestnut tree outside the school rooms. "It shows them that, if they put their minds to it they can achieve anything."

The church the Ghanaian attended as a schoolboy (Nyani Quarmyne / Demotix)

Mr Pawosey said: "He was very smart at school, and always good at Bible study. He was quiet and thoughtful. But he had a quick temper and strong principles. If someone was wrong, he would tell them."

But he added, with a chuckle: "He's softened now, though."

The kind of music enjoyed by the young Cardinal Turkson was very different to the choral chanting of the Vatican. "We played in a band together - I was on drums, and he was on bass," recalled Mr Pawosey. "We'd play Afrobeat stuff in the 1960s – James Brown, that kind of thing. He liked James Brown a lot."

James Brown (PA)

When the young man told his friend he was thinking of becoming a priest, Mr Pawosey encouraged him.

"I told him he should do it. I knew he'd be good at it. His father wasn't sure – he thought he had too quick a temper! But his father was the same. The cardinal has a scar below his left ribs from where his father beat him with a saw.

The house he lived in when he was Archbishop (Nyani Quarmyne / Demotix)

"Both got much more mellow with age. And the Cardinal is a very kind man now."

Nor has he forgotten his roots, it seems. As a gift to Mr Pawosey, he organised a blessing of his marriage at the Archbishop's residence in Cape Coast – a huge honour to his old schoolfriend. Mr Pawosey tells a story of how, on a recent visit, the Cardinal walked eight miles with him to visit a friend without thinking to hire a driver.

The Cardinal's younger brother, Matthew, 62, is the only remaining sibling to live in the village. The rest have spread far afield – several are in the capital, with some living on the coast in the town of Takoradi. His youngest brother lives in Canada, and a further brother, Dr John Kofi Turkson, a noted energy expert working for the United Nations in Denmark, was killed in a Kenyan Airways plane crash in 2000.

"He comes back to see me, and he remembers everyone," said Matthew Turkson, a retired miner, who lives with his wife Vick on one of the hills above the village in a small bungalow surrounded by banana trees.

Matthew Turkson, a brother (Nyani Quarmyne / Demotix)

"This is his home. Because our father was a miner, we were expected to become miners, too. I did. But it wasn't for him."

The boys' father, Kobena Turkson, was a miner in the manganese mine that dominates Nsuta. He was also a carpenter, making furniture in his spare time to help put food on the table.

The home of his brother in the village (Nyani Quarmyne / Demotix)

"He was a nice man, and very principled," said Isaac Essel-Moses, procurement officer at the mine. "He worked at the Church, and everyone knew him."

Over 700 people now work on the site, which since 1909 has blasted manganese out of the rock before processing it and sending it by rail to the coast. It is one of Ghana's main industries – along with gold mining and, now, oil. Mr Turkson worked on the mine all his adult life.

"He lived long enough to see his son made a cardinal, and it made him so very proud. He was a very religious man, and making his son a cardinal was God's way of saying thank you for all his hard work."

Their mother, Maame Aba Dansowa, ran a vegetable stall in the market. "She would go out into the small villages and come back with vegetables and eggs to sell," said Beatrice Dante, 58, a childhood friend who now has her own market stall.

"I remember that the mother would go to the village and bring back bushmeat, and we would all have a feast."

A few hundred yards down the road, a different family is now living in the Turkson house. As an employee of the mine, Mr Turkson had to vacate the staff premises when he retired. But the current inhabitants are delighted that the man who may be pope grew up in their house.

"It makes me so proud," said Rebecca Brace, 40, a mother of six, holding six-month-old Josephine in her arms. "And it proves that God makes the impossible become possible. Otherwise how could anyone from here go on to do that?"

Ghana's 25 million people are among the most religious on Earth.

Music blasting out at 5am is more likely than not to be the infectious drum beats of Evangelical gatherings, rather than a late-night club. Every taxi and bus bears scripture quotations, kitsch soft-focus images of Christ, or else moralistic urgings such as "Keep the faith" and "Trust in the Lord".

With per capita GDP at just over £900, a wide gulf between the wealthy elite in the capital and the rural poor, and a life expectancy of only 64, perhaps many Ghanaians have to put their faith in the Lord.

Shop owners seek divine intervention: "Blessed Business Centre" sits beside a sign for "Holy Driving School". Huge billboards promise salvation to those who go to hear a growing band of big-name preachers.

The country is well over two thirds Christian, and a further 16 per cent of Ghanaians practising Muslims.

Catholics account for 15 per cent of the population of this former British colony, which is proud of its democracy, stability, and religious tolerance - and was singled out for Barack Obama's first visit to Africa after he was first elected US president.

And Ghana's religious fervour left its mark on the young Peter Turkson.

In 1961 he left Nsuta-Wassaw to study in various seminaries across the region; firstly in Saltpond, near Cape Coast, and then in 1973 moving to New York. Whilst in the US, he found a night job as a cleaner at a bank – where at one point he was almost arrested.

Dr Joseph Marrota, an orthopaedic surgeon, recalled that a passerby had spotted the young man roaming through the closed bank and called the police. "It was 8 or 9 o'clock and they wanted to know what he was doing there," Dr Marrota told the New York Daily News. "He told them the truth, that he was cleaning the bank. They were going to arrest him and he had to call the cleaning service. He almost got taken away."

On his return to Ghana, two years later, he was ordained at the cathedral in the town of Cape Coast – the country's first capital, and the most important religious hub for Catholics. By 1992, he was Archbishop.

"Without a doubt, he would make an excellent pope," said Father Matthew Edusei, rector of the seminary in Cape Coast where the cardinal first studied, then taught.

"He is respected on all sides for his objectivity and listening to everyone. And, of course, it would be wonderful for Ghana."

What would Cardinal Turkson bring to the role? "One of the most important things is to have a vision of how you see the world," said Father Edusei. "His strength is that he is fascinated by the basic questions of life, and has a way of putting it across and making it accessible.

"He also has a huge range of experiences. And as an African priest, he sees the long list of material wants that people have, and realises that merely satisfying these is not the solution.

"Provided there is enough for basic human dignity, he sees that getting all we want in life will not solve problems. He sees that there is a need for something beyond the material."

Sister Margaret-Rose runs the Archbishop's house – where the Cardinal resided during his tenure, from 1992 to 2009.

"He was such a kind man," she said, beaming with pride. "Everyone loved him. He surrounded this house with trees because he loved nature. He was very humble and friendly."

Had she ever had the chance to go to Rome and visit him since he left? "I would love to," she said with a huge smile. "Please, pray for me!"

Back in Nsuta-Wassaw, the several thousand inhabitants are all praying for "their" man to be chosen as the new pope. "It would make us all so, so happy," said Mr Pawosey, his childhood friend.

Would he have another party, like the one he threw when Peter Turkson was made a cardinal?

"Really, Madame, for sure!" said Mr Pawosey. "Try and stop me. This would be a wonderful thing for us. For us, for Ghana and for the world."